I Need Your Help

Okay, so my little sister’s birthday is coming up and I have absolutely no idea what to get her.

Here in my household, books are usually pretty common. Usually I’ll pick her up one of the books I read and liked but is still age appropriate for her. She is only twelve and a half after all. Unfortunately, she’s already read all of the age-appropriate books I own! That’s where you come in.

I desperately need some book recommendations! She’s pretty mature for a twelve-year-old, having read The Hunger Games trilogy, the Darkest Powers trilogy as well as some of Pauline Gedge‘s novels. She loves fantasy and historical fiction, especially when there’s royalty involved, although she’ll read anything she can get her hands on.

However, please tell me of any mature content in your recommendation, which includes language, violence and sexuality. If you can, please tell me the extent of the mature content as well (explicit, brief, mild, etc).

So, do you know any good books for her? Please tell me in the comments below!

The series are written by Terry Pratchett. Each book is a different story, which includes a lot of wizardry, witches, death himself and a whole load of other characters. Very funny. It doesn’t have to be read in order.

It’s a fantasy trilogy about a necromancer who uses bells to keep dead things dead. I’m a particular fan of the second book in the trilogy because the heroine is a librarian. It was one of my favorites as a teenager. Oh, and there’s a sarcastic magical kitty named Mogget. :D

I don’t remember there being any. When I was a teenager I was very uncomfortable with sex/language in books that I read, so I don’t think there’s any in there. Maybe some typical fantasy novel violence, but nothing out of the ordinary.

A Wrinkle in Time. If you haven’t read it it is the first book in a series. I haven’t read the other books yet, but the first one is pretty good. It’s an age appropriate book, I think. Maybe a bit underage? It does have a lot of Christian influence, a lot like The Narnia series.
If that is a problem how about The Giver. It is part of a loose trilogy. Some people say it is inappropriate for children, but honestly, it isn’t bad. If your sister read The Hunger Games then she should have no troubles with it.

I’ve read A Wrinkle in Time, but it’s a bit preachy for me. I don’t think my sister would like it because of the preaching and it is below her reading level. She didn’t really like the Narnia series either.
As for The Giver, too late! She read it over a year ago and now has the whole series.
But thank you for the suggestions!

When I was a bit younger than that, I read historical fiction by Victoria Holt. It was The Night of the Seventh Moon (I think). I’ve re-read it as an adult and still enjoy it. It’s romancy. No explicit sex scenes or anything, but it is thought that a character is raped (word not used, it’s very euphemistic or talked-around as per the time period) and bears a child. The character doesn’t believe it (psychological play here), and it turns out she was right (she was happily married, thank you very much). There’s some attempted murder too.

Despite that rather adult content, I read it in about 6th grade (9-10), although there were bits I didn’t quite get (mostly historical) until I was an adult.

I could barely get through The Lord of the Rings (in fact, I quit about 30 pages in, which is rare for me) so I doubt she would like it.

As for the Victoria Holt, it sounds good. She’s read far worse than that, believe me. Her reading level is far above average as well (more like your average 16 year old) so I’m not too worried about it being very difficult. Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll definitely look into it.

Not really on the same line as the Giver, but I am about to start reading The Inkwell after I finish up the book I am reading now. It’s a kid’s book. If I understand correctly the father in the book can read fictional characters into life, or characters in books, or something like that. I believe it is part of a series. My mom rescued it from the school library and gave it to me, so i figured I would give it a chance.

Once again, too late! She already read the entire Inkheart trilogy, which is really good by the way. It’s a children’s book, but it’s still one of my all-time favourites. Unfortunately, she didn’t really like it. I don’t know why, but she didn’t.

In parts one and two of this series I described some of the tropes that most annoy me and I’m going to continue in that griping tradition for part three. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these so I’m ready to start ranting! The usual caveat applies: tropes are not necessarily clichés. […]